Don't Feed After Midnight
Chapter 13
He was going over the facts, trying to tease some small recollection from his memory that might allow him to work out exactly what 'Zeke' was.
It had been unaffected by the dungeon's warding, was capable of deciding whether it was visable or not; and was either an excellent guesser or possessed some form of telepathy.
And then there was the whole "My kind don't take sides. I simply state the facts," statement.
It was a clue, Crowley knew it. Most monsters weren't cognizant of there even being sides, driven as they were, entirely by self interest, and the drive to survive and procreate.
Neutrality was distinct from apathy, ignorance, or indifference. This Zeke individual, had declared neutrality… and that, well, that was unusual and smelled almost political.
Crowley was going through the list of entities he considered evolved enough for such a mind set, when an alarm started braying, and low wattage emergency lighting flickered on, lighting everything a lurid, bloody red.
The aesthetics of the lighting and shrieks of alarms were pleasantly homey, true, but they also signified some kind of new drama in the offing. What were coiff and boff up to now?
Boot steps on metal stairs.
What a surprise, something new had gone wrong and apparently, he was once again deemed to be the cause.
It would be flattering, if it wasn't all so banal and irritating.
Well, two could play the game.
"🎶Roxanne,
You don't have to put on the red light,
Those days are over,
You don't have to sell your body to the night🎵."
Crowley crooned the lyrics of The Police song, slyly, knowing it would rile Dean up.
Besides he'd often wondered if Dean had ever been hardup enough to try his hand at the oldest profession.
Fergus had been forced to stoop to such things, just to eat or win favours at times, as a lad.
Why not Dean Winchester? He was significantly more attractive than Rowena Macleod's son had ever been, (those lips, those almost feminine features. His aggressive heterosexuality often struck Crowley as a defense mechanism. Maybe it was the reason the lady protesteth so much) Winchester senior had dumped Deano with little brother for months at a time. Monster hunts ran over, money ran out. Little brothers still needed feeding.
"🎵Roxanne
You don't have to wear that dress tonight,
walk the streets for money.
You don't care if it's wrong or if it's right.🎶"
There was only one set of footsteps. Maybe if he played his cards right, Dean might punish him, for whatever infraction they were laying at his door.
The footsteps paused outside his boudoir and a very Moose-like huff was heard before the doors slid open.
Not Dean, bugger!
"🎵Ohhh Sam," Crowley modified the lyrics on the fly, as the younger Winchester walked in.
"🎶You don't have to put on the red light,
O-hh Sam,
You don't have to put on the red light,
put on the red light,
(O-h Sam) put on the red light,
(O-h Sam) put on the red light,
(O-h Sam) put on the red light,
(O-h Sam) put on the red light,
Oh!🎵"
Samantha scowled at his serenade, "Very funny, Crowley."
"🎶O-hh Sam,
You don't have to put on the red light,
Those days are over,
You don't have to sell your body to the night.🎵"
There was a betting pool round the office, on what Lucifer had done with young Samuel, in the cage for all that time.
Was that a flush of shame, or was it just the lighting? Crowley couldn't tell. The narrowed eyes and bulging muscles in the hunters jaw were easier to decern.
Crowley smiled up from his chair knowingly, "Red lights… All that time in the cage… you'll forgive me for wondering, if maybe you'd be up for a career change." He tilted his head, dragging his eyes up and down Sam's body slowly and leered.
"I hear you are quite popular with a certain demographic. I'm sure you and big brother would do very well."
"Just shut it, Crowley!" Moose snapped.
The emergency lighting fluctuated, as if affected by Moose's temper.
Again, Crowley found himself contemplating the younger Winchester, something was not quite right in the boy's aura. Had Moose fallen off the wagon?
"This wasn't you." Sam stated after a moment of mutual observation.
"Define, this." He invited, with an aborted gesture, brought up short by the blasted manicals. If he could just get Sam to take a few steps forward, inside the warding, he should be able to work it out.
Sam didn't budge. "The Bunker, it's in lockdown, lasttime that happened, Metatron threw the angels out of heaven and locked all its doors."
"Let me out of here, I can help. I don't want that bunch of winged monkeys on earth any more than you do!"
"Yeah," Sam huffed, "not a chance Crowley."
"Ever hear, 'the enemy of my enemy—"
Sam laughed cynically. "You're never going to be my friend, Crowley. You're a scorpion, you know it, and I know it."
With that last slight Sam turned on his boot heel and stode out, sliding the doors decisively shut behind him.
…ooo0ooo…
It took Dean a while to work out what had happened.
The doors to the loading dock had snapped shut like a trap.
After pointlessly trying to find some external mechanism to reopen the loadingdock doors, Dean made his way round to the main door.
Only to pat his pockets and realise that he'd left his keys hanging from the Impala's trunk.
They were locked inside the bunker.
It wasn't until after he'd messed up his knuckles, banging on the door that he remembered how utterly impenetrable their new bat cave was, and steeled himself to the unpalatable idea of calling Sam and asking to be let back in.
It was then he discovered, his phone had absolutely no service.
It may have taken him longer than he wanted to admit, to make the connection between the way the loading dock doors had slammed shut like a clam and the lack of cell service; to remember what Kevin had said about the bunker door not opening from the inside when the angels fell.
They'd found four keys to the bunker, one was on his keyring- which was currently hanging from the impala's trunk.
Sam had one in his wallet. Kevin had the original, that came in the nifty wooden men of letters box, which Abbadon had chased after Henry and killed him for.
Those three keys were locked inside the bunker, behind concrete and inch thick iron plate.
The last key was sitting in a P.O Box in the Lebanon post office, part of a new 'incase of emergency' plan, they had yet to finish setting up.
The system would send out an email to Garth and Charlie, give them instructions on how to find and access the bunker if they failed to reset it. Something similar to the email Kevin had used to tip them off after Crowley abducted him from Garth's boat.
Dean checked his watch, the post office closed at 5pm, and it was a good couple of hours walk.
"Awesome!"
…ooo0ooo…
"Hey, Crowley's still secure."
"Are you sure?" Kevin asked, his hands still white knuckling the gun.
"Yeah. Just relax, Dean will be back by morning. We are safer here than anywhere.
Either it's something out there. Or something mechanical in here is on the fritz. Dean'll sort it."
Kevin held out the gun and climbed to his feet. Trailed him on the way to the machine room.
"First things first, I'm gonna work out how to turn off the alarms. If nothing else, we can cut the wires to the sirens."
Kevin looked up at that, face dumbfounded, "seriously? That would work? Why didn't I think of that, lasttime."
Sam patted the prophet on the shoulder in consolation, "what can I say Kevin, that's the difference between being smart, and being experienced. Come on, I'll teach you."
…ooo0ooo…
"When he called you a scorpion, Sam Winchester was thinking of Aesop's fable, the one with the scorpion and the frog."
Crowley flinched at the voice.
Again with his unseen tormentor?!
"Zeke, you really should stop listening at keyholes, you know what they say." Crowley parried, covering an atypical prickle of hurt at the dig.
Surely Sam understood by now, that he might be a demon, but he wasn't so hellbent on distruction as to sink the effing boat! Hadn't he helped rid the world of Dick Roman and cleared out the rest of the Leviathan. Didn't he help put Lucifer back in his cage? Seriously? Talk about complete ingratitude!
"If it's Aesop's fables you want to discuss, how about we turn our attention to 'The bats, the birds and the beasts.' Something tells me it might strike a chord."
"Hmmm, indeed," Zeke acknowledged, "neutrality has it's burdens. But it also has compensations."
"Samantha isn't aware of your presence here."
"Astute deduction. It would be unwise to mention the name 'Zeke' to him. I have to warn you, Dean doesn't want his younger brother to know how close to Death those demon trials pushed him. He wasn't lying about gutting you."
"And you?"
"I thought we had established, my kind is Switzerland."
"Hardly! You're helping the Winchester's, if you were truly neutral you'd help me as well."
"I am helping you. Helping you along your road to self discovery. Shall we talk about how you felt, when Sam Winchester announced you would never be friends?"
"That's not what I want, and you damn well know!" Crowley bellowed, fury escaping his control.
Zeke was completely unphased by the outburst.
"Yes," he agreed unflappable, tone so reasonable it made Crowley want to vomit, or disembowel something.
"Meanwhile, Dean Winchester doesn't want to eat less animal protein or get more exercise.
People so rarely want what they actually need.